From Opposite Ends
by Thaumh
Summary: Two friends and colleagues from the opposite of Time meet at a middle point. A one-shot.


**Author's note: When I looked and saw that this particular crossover had not been covered, I instantly had this little chestnut in my head. The Doctor is no specific incarnation in particular, but a sort of semi-amalgam of the most recent. The Callahan Gang is still living merrily as ever in Key West with Jake at the helm.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the work of Spider Robinson, or the characters of the BBC Television series. I am writing this for my own pleasure and the enjoyment of any who cares to read it and am in no way intending to make any sort of monetary profit from it.**

From Opposite Ends

It was three years, five months, and two weeks to the day after Doc Webster's death that Mike finally decided to show his mug. Not that I was counting. It was just him that showed up, on a slow day with just us regulars. I almost didn't notice his arrival. He came strolling out of Eddie's hut, casual as you please, like he'd done it a thousand times before, wearing Bermuda shorts with orange hibiscus blossoms and a kelly green Hawaiian shirt with palm trees and flying saucers on it. The Hawaiian shirt he wore unbuttoned over one of our own "The Place: Because It's Time" t-shirts. His eternal cigar was of course smoldering, leaving behind it's classic foul contrail.

He dropped a worn and frayed old fiver on the cigar box and asked me for a pull of Guinness, which I gave him with a warm smile, and then the other shoe dropped and I performed a double take worthy of the Marx Brothers. I noticed several of the others having similar reactions all over The Place.

Rather than spew a thousand and one to the tenth to the tenth nosy questions and risk getting sapped and dumped in the pool by Fast Eddie, who was still blithely plinking away at his piano, I poured a draft of my own and silently raised my glass to his and we clinked them together. Beer's really not my thing (unless you're planning on distilling it into whiskey), but it's what Mike wanted and the sad look to his eyes as he smilingly clunked his glass to mine made me realize that he really needed that stout. I took a long enough quaff of the burnt-toasty brew to be polite, while he finished his in a single pull. I raised my eyebrows questioningly and nodded my head sideways towards the fire place, all in the same gesture. He wiped the foam out of his handle-bar mustache and nodded.

He stepped up to the chalk line and cleared his throat. Eddie stopped playing and swiveled in his piano stool. If he were a cartoon, I'm certain his jaw would have been on the floor and his eyes bugged to the size of dodge balls.

It was silent except for the sea breeze rattling through the palms as Mike cocked back his hand and quietly said, "To friends," and chucked in the beer glass as hard as he could. It shattered into fine sand, and was quickly followed by a bombardment of other empties from all over. After that, he went back to his seat and sat down. He dropped another five in the cigar box and I poured him another, which he chose to nurse rather than quaff.

The party more or less continued after that. I was burning with questions, and I'm pretty sure everyone else was too, and I have no doubt he knew it, but the 'rules' of The Place (such as they were) are iron clad. First and for most and gilded was 'No Nosy Questions'. So we made small talk. Erin, by now a gawky teen that was well on her way to becoming the stunner we all saw back when we dealt with 'Little Nutz', climbed happily into his lap like she was half her present size. He hugged her close and then let her dangle with his arm gently around her waist.

The puns were all sadly substandard.

After about an hour of beating 'round the bush, Mike glanced at the counterclock, and sighed.

"I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you all here today," he began in his fondly remembered basso.

We all chuckled.

"The real reason I'm here," he continued after we'd quieted again, "is I'm meeting an old friend."

"Any of us met dis friend, Mick?" asked Eddie

Callahan nodded, "Doc and Long Drink did, a looong long time ago."

McGonnigle raised his eyebrows, "The Brit guy in the blue box?"

Mick just nodded. Erin, still in his lap, frowned like someone trying to remember the name of a favorite childhood song.

Before anyone could say much else, a wind kicked up in the gravel parking lot, and a really weird sound was heard. The closest I could figure, it was either someone trying to use a hack saw to bow a cello (Zoe agreed with me on that one when we talked about it later), or an elephant having an orgasm.

The latter was not helped by Harry the Parrot screaming out, "You like that!? Huh!? You like it!?"

Just as it was getting loud enough that I was starting to worry about a neighbor hearing it, the noise stopped suddenly and the wind vanished. We all heard a door open and close, followed by feet walking across the gravel. I hazarded a glance behind the the back wall of the bar, and saw a guy about as tall and lanky as The Drink. His hair was unruly, and despite the tropical weather, he wore a long brown coat and knitted scarf. Whatever else he was wearing, all I could make out was a dark red bow tie, and bright red Converse sneakers. Behind him neat as you please in a proper parking space, though a little crooked, was an old British Police call box.

His face looked distant and troubled, but almost the instant I poked my head around, he lit up like a city center Christmas Tree.

"You must be Jake," he said in a vaguely Liverpool accent, thrusting a hand forward.

I blinked, but rallied, "That's what all my friends call me, so yeah, I guess I _must_ be."

We shook hands. His grip was warm and firm, with an odd tingle, like a joy buzzer with almost no charge left in the battery.

"Welcome to The Place," I said leading him around to the poolside where every one was.

"Because it's Time," he finished, leaving me more dumb struck than seeing him and his apparent 'ride' had been.

Before I could do much about it, Mike was embracing this new guy like a long lost brother.

"Everyone," boomed Mike, "This, is the Doctor. Time Traveler Extraordinare and professional clandestine Universe Saver."

Tom Hauptman grinned, "I like him already."

Mei Ling, Doc Webster's widow, beamed, "Welcome."

Soon they were seated at the bar.

"What'll ya have?" I asked.

After a glance at the back wall, he grinned, "Two fingers of Beefeater with a twist."

I put his drink in front of him, and glanced meaningfully at the cigar box.

The Doctor winced, "Mike, could you spot me, just this once?"

Callahan sighed, and dropped another old five in the box. "Be careful, Doctor." he warned. "I've already had two and there are only so many American fivers sitting forgotten in dusty old corners right now."

More small talk was made as drinks were sipped, when a car was heard driving into our lot.

"It's Marty," called Shorty from a chaise lounge by the pool.

A car door opened and slammed, and Marty fairly sprinted across the gravel, skidding to a stop by the bar.

"Doctor?!" he cried.

The Doctor and Mike both blinked in confusion and astonishment, followed by the whole rest of us.

Marty did a double take of his own, as it sunk in which of us was the new face, and he blinked a bit himself.

"You... look different," was what he got out eventually.

"I had to regenerate," the Dorctor replied, as if that explained everything. "You are?"

"You know him, Marty," asked Mike.

Marty used to be a New Jersey State Highway Patrolman, until he retired and fell in with us, all in the same day.

The ex-cop nodded, "We had this real weird-ass case already going. I was there the day his blue box showed up, on my beat no less. I was just a rookie then. 'Sevety-eight? November? Highway 1, just outside Princeton?"

The Doctor's eyes glazed as he searched his own mind, getting clearer with each clue. Finally he snapped his fingers and grinned like a winning Quiz Show contestant, "The Carrionite vs the Jersey Devil!"

Mick winced, "That sounds like it was nice and violent."

The Doctor shook his head, "Not so much as you'd think. Oh it got dicey at times."

Marty nodded, "Luckily, their final confrontation happened out in the Pines. Sorta gave Tris a home field advantage." He chuckled then, "Hey, guess who showed up maybe five minutes _after_ your blue box vanished."

"Torchwood?" the Doctor ventured.

Marty chuckled more and nodded, "Along with some FBI spooks. HAH! Too bad it wasn't the nineties. I could'a mad a million cracks about "where's Mulder ans Scully?""

That got a round or laughs from all of us.

Well, after another hour and a half of laughter, jokes, much improved puns, good tunes, and general merriment, we all began to notice that the Doctor's frivolity was just a cover up for some truly deep pain. Now don't get me wrong, his cover was damn good. I honestly don't think anyone else, except maybe a pro shrink, could have picked that up, but we've been dealing with hurting people who cover it well for years, literally decades for some of us. Our Rule can indeed be frustrating, but if nothing else, we have learned patients. The Place and the people have that effect on people. If they're hurting, and they've found their way here, given enough time, they will open up.

By the time that hour-and-a-half had passed, almost everyone except The House had bought the Doctor 'two fingers of Beefeater with a twist'. He showed absolutely no signs of inebriation, and had a tidy little three sided pyramid of empty tumblers next to him. I was refilling the empty lime wedge bin as the laughter from the last topic faded.

The Doctor sighed as he contemplated his recent empty. He'd already put the capper on his pyramid. The glass in his hand was one more than he needed, unless he started a tower. Something about his sigh seemed to send a shock of recognition through Mei Ling. She took a good look at the Doctor, then nodded slightly to her self.

"Jake," she said dropping five shiny Sacagaweas in the cigar box, "One shot of Absolute Peppar."

I handed her the shot, and she winked at me as she stepped to the chalk line, then knocked it back and swallowed with a wince/grin, cocked back her hand and said, "To our lost Loved Ones."

While most of the rest of us heartily tossed our own glasses into the fireplace after Mei Ling's, the Doctor just stared at her long and hard, which she ignored magnificently as she sauntered back to her chaise lounge by the pool.

The Doctor looked back at his own glass, then around The Place at all of us, his gaze finally settling on the fire place and the pile of broken glass amongst the coals. He then locked eyes with Mike, and about a hundred trillion terabytes seemed to pass between them. Mike finally broke the gaze and made a 'go-for-it' hand sweep towards the chalk line.

The Doctor took one last look back at the empty in his hand, and hopped off his seat and stepped up. Everyone was silent while he thought.

At last, he held his glass aloft and said, "To saying 'Good-bye'."

The barrage of glass that followed was extremely satisfactory, even by our standards.

The Doctor sat down again and was quietly contemplative for a moment, staring at his pyramid, but not actually looking at it.

"Her name is Rose," He began at last...


End file.
